


This Could Work

by benrumo



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-30
Updated: 2011-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:03:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benrumo/pseuds/benrumo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat thinks John can save the new universe. John thinks he might be in love with Karkat.</p><p><i>“So I thought since you admired me and I pitied you, maybe this could actually work.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	This Could Work

**Author's Note:**

> A sort-of prequel to "All the Quadrants," another one of my fics. You don't need to read one to understand the other.

“Egbert. Egbert, come down to the ground before I pull you down! I am not talking to you when you’re hanging over my head like a smug, windy asshole.”

Your name is John Egbert, even if Karkat would like to forget the first half of that most of the time, and you can’t stop laughing long enough to land. Windy asshole! Pwhahaha!

“Damn it, Egbert, we do not have time for your ridiculous prankster’s antics! We have serious business to discuss. Now will you please get down here and at least pretend to be the leader this new planet needs?”

“Haha! I’m – heh! – I’m sorry, Karkat! Hehe! I just – pwahahaha! – I can’t believe you just said that! Oh, man! You don’t even know what you said, do you? Hahaha!”

You hold your sides and kick your legs as another fit of laughter bursts out of you, sending you cart wheeling backwards through the air. You end up hanging upside down. You’ve got to twist a bit to look Karkat in the face, but you don’t bother flipping back right-side-up. It’s amazing how natural it feels to move through the air. A whole new set of expressions suddenly at your disposal that are somehow closer to the heart of things, to your heart, than anything you can do on the ground. Free from the ground, you feel free from almost everything and capable of anything. If gravity can’t bring you down, why should anything else?

“Great, Egbert. This is just great. I come here to talk to you about the future of our new universe and you just sit there giggling like this is all some big joke. Fuck this. I’m going back to my hive to ritualistically sacrifice those idiotic little puffballs that have invaded my ablution chamber and wish with all of my little red blood pusher that everything will just magically turn out alright, because there’s a better chance of that than there is of you taking this seriously for five seconds and actually being the friendleader you claim to be.”

Karkat hunches his shoulders and stalks away, grumbling under his breath. Or clicking under his breath, you should say. One of the neatest things about the trolls, in your opinion anyway, is how they make all these cool noises. Jade says it’s probably because the trolls are evolutionary cousins to some kind of huge insects, like humans are the evolutionary cousins of chimpanzees. She’s gotten really interested in troll anatomy ever since the game ended.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” you say, floating in front of Karkat. “Look! I’m listening! I can totally be the friendleader.”

Karkat just brushes past you. You’re just about to fly over his head again when he turns back.

“Get down, damn it,” he orders, tugging on your wrist.

You obediently land. This must be serious if Karkat actually turned back instead of just stomping off and going on a tirade.

“What’s up, Karkat?”

“Look, I…”

He kicks at the ground hard enough to dislodge a chunk of Alt-earth-ia’s (the name you chose for the new planet) red-orange-y grass.

“I’m only going to say this once, alright? So you’d better be fucking listening.”

“I am! Scout’s honor!”

“What?”

“Never mind. I’m listening, I promise.”

“Good.”

Karkat opens his mouth, but no words come out.

“…Fuck.”

He shoves his hands in his pockets.

“Look, you better not tell a fucking soul about this, alright? Not even that yellow lizard of yours. And especially not any of the other fucking trolls.”

“Can I tell the other humans?”

“No! Goddamn it, John, what does ‘not a fucking soul’ mean?”

“OK, OK! I won’t tell anybody.”

“I’m serious.”

“I get it.”

“Dead fucking serious. As in I will make you fucking dead if you tell anybody what I’m about to tell you.”

“Jeez, Karkat, are you going to tell me or just spend all day threatening me?”

That gets Karkat to shut up, but it doesn’t get him talking about why he’s here. He just sits there making this low growling/clicking noise in the back of his throat (which you’ve come to learn is an “I’m frustrated” noise and is one of Karkat’s favorite forms of expression next to shouting) and running his hands through his hair. You can tell from the angle of his fingers that he’s dragging his claws across his scalp. You wonder how he manages to keep from constantly scratching himself with his claws.

“Karkat?” you prompt.

“Shut up.”

You shift your weight from one foot to the other, wondering how long you’re going to have to sit here before Karkat works up the nerve to say whatever it is he followed you out here to say. You immediately get distracted by a butterfly flittering against the white sky behind Karkat’s head. Like all the butterflies on Alt-earth-ia, its wings aren’t so much wings as numerous strands of hair-like tendrils that glitter and glisten like diamonds. Everything on Alt-earth-ia is so pretty. Even the trolls can’t help but to admit that, even if they think that it’s a bit of a waste for everything to be so helpless and gentle.

“Alternia was a horrible place.”

You’re startled to hear the words coming out of Karkat’s mouth, not just because you weren’t ever expecting him to speak again but because Karkat’s constantly going on about Alternia and how great it was, especially when compared to your own home planet.

“What?”

“Yeah, I know. Big fucking surprise, isn’t it? Karkat hates his home world! And after all the time he spent griping to me about how Earth was the shitstain of the universe! I’m sure this just blows your fucking thinkpan.”

“Well, uh, yeah!”

“Shut up!” he snaps. “By troll standards, Earth is the shitstain of the universe. But that’s because…”

“Because what?”

“Will you just shut up and let me talk?”

“I’m only saying something because you keep stopping!”

“I’m only stopping because I have to make sure and pick small words so your pathetic little human brain can grasp what my superior troll intellect is trying to convey!”

“Oh my god, Karkat, just spit it out already!”

“IT’S BECAUSE TROLLS ARE HORRIBLE!” he finally screams. “WE’RE VIOLENT MONSTERS BY ANY SANE STANDARD WHICH I ONLY REALIZED AFTER SEEING TWO UNIVERSES FULL OF CUDDLY ASSHOLES LIKE YOU AND WHATEVER THE FUCK WE’RE GOING TO CALL THE OTHER ALIENS HERE. WE’RE SUCH VILE FUCKING CREATURES THAT WE CAN’T EVEN BE IN THE SAME ROOM WITH ANOTHER TROLL WITHOUT THE CONSTANT THREAT OF DEATH. AND WHEN WE AREN’T KILLING EACH OTHER, THE FUCKING DRONES ARE DOING THE KILLING FOR US. IF THE MOTHERGRUB DIDN’T LAY THOUSANDS OF EGGS EACH DAY, WE PROBABLY WOULD HAVE MURDERED EACH OTHER TO EXTINCTION MILENA AGO.”

He grabs a fist full of your shirt and pulls you forward, right into his face.

“WE CAN’T FUCKING LET THAT HAPPEN AGAIN. ARE YOU FUCKING LISTENING? I’M NOT GOING TO SIT BY AND WATCH AS THE TWELVE OF US FUCK THIS PLANET UP AS BAD AS OURS WAS JUST BECAUSE WE DON’T FUCKING KNOW BETTER. AND YOU ARE GOING TO STOP FLOATING AROUND AND SMELLING BUTTERFLIES LIKE A WHIMSICAL FUCKASS WITH NOTHING BETTER TO DO AND ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!”

“Uh, woah, Karkat! Claws, claws!”

“Shit, sorry.”

He lets you go.

“I may have gotten carried away there,” he mumbles. “But hopefully I got my fucking point across. You can’t let us fuck this planet up, Egbert. You can’t let any of us near the new races. Not even the new trolls. Especially not the fucking trolls. It’s the only chance anyone alive has at happiness.”

“Wait, Karkat, maybe you’re taking this a bit too seriously—”

“OF COURSE I’M TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY. YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I HAVE TO? BECAUSE THERE’S NOT ANOTHER GODDAMNED PERSON ON THIS PLANET WHO’S GOING TO DO IT FOR ME. IF I JUST SAT BACK ON MY ASS AND ADMIRED THE FUCKING GRASS AND CLOUDS LIKE THE REST OF YOU MORONS PROCEED TO DO DAY AFTER DAY, WE’D ALL STARVE TO DEATH.”

“Oh my god, Karkat, this is exactly what I’m talking about! We would not all starve!”

“BUT YOU’D FUCK THIS UP. DID YOU KNOW VRISKA’S ALREADY TALKING ABOUT TELLING THE TROLL KIDS STORIES ABOUT HER ‘ADVENTURES AS THE MAGNIFICENT MINDFANG’?”

“Well, I don’t see what’s so bad about that.”

“WHERE THE FUCK SHOULD I START, WITH THE WAY SHE INTENTIONALLY KILLED DOZENS OF TROLLS EACH WEEK TO FEED HER MONSTER LUSUS OR THE WAY SHE THREW TAVROS OFF A CLIFF WITH HER MIND POWERS?”

“That’s not fair, Karkat! She didn’t ask to have such a horrible lusus and she apologized to Tavros! She’s working to be better, and I think you should cut her some slack.”

“DON’T PLAY HER FUCKING MOIRAIL, ASSHOLE. I KNOW HER BETTER THAN YOU DO.”

“I don’t think you do! You just call her a huge bitch and avoid her! You don’t know the first thing about what her life was like!”

“I KNOW MORE ABOUT IT THAN YOU EVER WILL,” he hisses in your face. “BECAUSE UNLIKE YOU, I LIVED ON ALTERNIA. I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO KILL TO STAY ALIVE. YOU THINK VRISKA’S THE ONLY ONE WITH BLOOD ON HER HANDS? YOU WANT TO TAKE A GUESS AT HOW MANY THE REST OF US HAVE KILLED? HOW MANY I HAVE KILLED? AND I AM THE WORST FUCKING TROLL. I CAN’T EVEN EXPLAIN TO YOU HOW MUCH OF A MUTANT FREAK I AM BECAUSE YOUR LIMITED HUMAN INTELLECT COULDN’T PROCESS IT. I HATED HAVING TO KILL TROLLS, AND IT MADE ME A FREAK. CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE THAT? CAN YOU IMAGINE A WORLD WHERE EVERY DAY CAME WITH THE THREAT OF DEATH? WHERE YOU COULDN’T EVEN LEAVE YOUR HOUSE WITHOUT A WEAPON? I SPENT MOST OF MY LIFE TOO SCARED TO LEAVE MY OWN HIVE, BECAUSE EVEN IF I DIDN’T END UP DEAD AT THE HANDS OF ANOTHER TROLL, A SINGLE SCRAPE SOMEWHERE I COULDN’T HIDE WOULD MEAN THE END OF MY LIFE. AND WHEN WE WEREN’T BUSY KILLING ONE ANOTHER, OUR OWN PLANET KILLED US. EVERY CREATURE THAT WALKED THE SURFACE OF ALTERNIA POSED A THREAT. OUR SUN EVEN KILLED US. YOU EVER WONDER HOW TEREZI WENT BLIND? WHY DON’T YOU GET YOUR CHUM VRISKA TO TELL YOU THAT STORY ONE DAY. EVERY SINGLE THOUGHT, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THOUGHT GOING THROUGH MY HEAD WAS ABOUT KILLING OR BEING KILLED. EVERY FRIEND YOU MADE COULD KILL YOU THE MOMENT YOU HAD YOUR BACK TURNED, AND WORSE, YOU HAD TO BE PREPARED TO KILL THEM IF PUSH CAME TO SHOVE. CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE LIVING LIKE THAT? COULD YOU IMAGINE KILLING YOUR FRIENDS TO STAY ALIVE? OF COURSE YOU FUCKING COULDN’T. BECAUSE YOU COME FROM A RACE OF SOFT PINK MONKEYS THAT LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

“That’s why you’ve got to do this,” he says, finally coming back down to a normal volume level. “You can’t let us teach the trolls to live like we have. You can’t let my species become monsters again. They deserve to live and be happy. Give them what we never got. No matter what it takes. Even if that means killing us.”

“Karkat, you can’t ask me to do that!”

“If you don’t, the trolls will destroy this planet, just like we did our own. They’ll kill the other races, down to the last living creature. Or worse.”

You can see something on Karkat’s face that you’ve never seen there before. You’ve never seen it anywhere before. You can’t tell what it is, but it’s dark and hollow. It turns the centers of his eyes into lightless pits. It’s even worse than the look you saw on Rose’s face when she went grimdark. It terrifies you, makes you sick at your stomach, and makes your heart ache all at once.

“Get Dave to do it if you can’t. Or Rose. Just make sure it gets done if it comes to that. But you’ve got to be the one who saves the trolls.”

“But why me? Why can’t you do it, Karkat? You could do it. You could teach everyone. Not just the new trolls, but all our friends, too. You just said it yourself, I don’t know the first thing about being a troll.”

It feels strange to call them “our” friends now that you realize how little you actually know about the trolls.

“No, I can’t, Egbert! Have you not been listening to a word I’ve said? Maybe I’m not as bad as the rest, probably because of my fucking mutation, but I’m still a troll. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been amazed at the things you take for granted. And not just you, your whole species. Like hospitals. Fuck, I would kill the first idiot who came at me with drugs and knives, regardless of their intentions. Literally kill them. If one of our friends ended up so screwed up they couldn’t take care of themselves, the only mercy I’d show them was culling them. That’s the only mercy I’d _know_ to show them. But your species would probably spoon feed them back to health like the fucking idiots you are, even if all you got was a face full of claws for your troubles. And you, you’d smile and sing ridiculous human campfire songs even as we insulted and hurt you because… I don’t even fucking know. Sometimes I think your brain is just broken, like Tavros’, and you really can’t help it.”

“OK, wow, Karkat. Talk about your backhanded compliments.”

“But,” he ignores you, “it’s just the right kind of broken. It’s the kind of broken this planet needs if it’s going to have even the slightest chance of being the happy ending all of us worked and died for.”

He reaches out and grabs your wrist, making sure he has your attention.

“You’re the only one in the whole universe, in any universe, who is just the right kind of insane to do the impossible and turn this universe we built on death and destruction and loss into something better. It’s you, John Egbert. You’re the real hero that none of us deserve.”

Drawn out on Karkat’s face is everything the 16 of you put into that game: the triumphs and the failures, the sheer hope that each and every one of you fought so hard for. It makes your heart break. It makes it burst with more emotion than you’ve ever felt for anyone. It makes you fall in love.

Karkat pulls back almost as quickly as your lips touch him. His face is red under the grey and it looks so natural, so _human_ that you can’t help but to fall for him a little more.

“What… Just what do you think you’re doing, Egbert?”

“You know, a lot of what you just said sounds like you really admire me,” you explain. “It almost sounds like you’re saying you like me.”

“WHAT?”

You wonder how he’s able to make his voice that loud without hurting himself.

“Damn it, Egbert, here I am trying to explain how we should shape the future of the universe, you know, since we’re _the GODS of THREE species now,_ and you got out of that that I was hitting on you?! What the fuck does admiration have to do with romance, anyway? That makes no fucking sense.”

“Hey, we have to deal with accidentally hitting on you guys with the whole hate and pity issue. It’s about time one of you had to deal with accidentally hitting on us!”

“I WAS _NOT_ HITTING ON YOU, YOU BRAINDEAD—”

You override him.

“And you know, when you were talking about your planet and all the horrible things that happened there, you were really sad and pitiful. I really felt pity for you. So I thought since you admired me and I pitied you, maybe this could actually work.”

“You felt… Wait, you fucking mean… you and me?” He points his finger back and forth between you, as if the illustration is necessary and you’re the one who doesn’t get it. “The two of us. Together. Red feelings.”

“In love,” you say.

The moment the words leave your mouth you realize how they sound. Now you’re the one who’s flustered.

“I mean, not that we need to take anything too fast! We should probably go slow, and not throw around big words before we’re ready for them! There’s no rush! After all, we’ve got all the time in the world now.”

“What happened to ‘I am not a homosexual,’ or whatever the stupid fucking issue was?”

“I changed my mind.”

“YOU CAN’T JUST CHANGE YOUR MIND,” he shouts, not just angry and shouty but suddenly furious, more furious than you’ve seen him since the game ended and you all got your lives and friends back. “YOU CAN’T JUST… FUCK YOU, EGBERT AND YOUR STUPID HUMAN CONCEPT OF LOVE. YOU CAN’T JUST DO THAT TO PEOPLE. YOU CAN’T JUST CHANGE YOUR MIND ON A FUCKING _WHIM._ YOU DON’T HAVE A FUCKING CLUE WHAT YOU PUT ME THROUGH. I’D TELL YOU, SINCE YOU SO KINDLY BROUGHT UP THE SUBJECT, BUT EVEN THOUGH YOU MAY NOT HAVE NOTICED, THIS IS THE SINGLE WORST POSSIBLE MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF THIS AND ANY UNIVERSE TO BE WASTING PRECIOUS BREATH ON WHAT FEELINGS YOU MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE. IN FACT, EVERY BREATH WE SIT HERE WASTING PROBABLY COMES AT THE COST OF MILLIONS IN THE FUTURE. YOU PROBABLY JUST DOOMED A CIVILIZATION THAT DOESN’T EXIST YET. I HOPE YOU’RE FUCKING PROUD.”

You ride out the tirade, because at his current volume his words would just eat any you tried to say without shouting yourself, and shouting back would be the worst possible thing you can do right now.

“It wasn’t a whim,” you say when he finally runs out of breath. “I didn’t just change my mind. I thought about it long and hard, OK?”

“When, the five seconds before you kissed me?”

You’re really kind of embarrassed to say. Mainly, you’re embarrassed that you didn’t realize it sooner, but you’re also embarrassed to tell the story to Karkat because, come on! You just kissed him. _And_ you told him you pitied him. That’s more than enough confessions of love for one day. Like. You mean like. Not love.

“No. Actually, it was during the battle with Jack. And a little after when things were still so unsure…” you mumble.

 You glance up, kind of hoping that he’ll step in and stop you, but no luck. Looks like you’re really going to have to go there.

“Well, um, I was just there. And, you know, it was so possible that all of us just could have died. I didn’t want to believe it any more than you did, but we really did face death there! I mean, sure, we kind of faced death the whole game, and I already died once on my quest bed, but this was different. This was actual death, with a capital D. This was the end of the game, one way or another. And I was just there and thinking that _wow_ , maybe I’m going to die for real. Maybe this is the last moment of my life. And I started thinking about all the things I’d never get to do, like grow up and get a driver’s license, or go to prom, or meet Liv Tyler. And I realized that the thing I regretted the most was that I was going to die without ever having fallen in love. I know it’s kind of stupid. I mean, I’m only 13. Not like there were a lot of opportunities… I mean, there was that thing with Vriska, but it’s probably for the best that it didn’t work out. But then I realized that there had been another opportunity. You, and I didn’t even give you a chance. I didn’t even consider it, and I felt like such a huge jerk about it, Karkat! You have no idea how much I wanted to apologize, but by the time I realized it, it was too late. So I swore that if we made it out alive, I’d give you a real chance.”

You haven’t really been looking at him, but the moment you finish you try to meet his eyes, wondering if he’s going to give your chance a chance or if it really is too little too late.

“That is the worst story I have ever heard. I take back what I said about this being the worst possible moment to be sorting through your romantic feelings, _that_ was the single worst possible moment to ever exist, and you took it,” Karkat says through the hand he face-palmed himself with about half way through your explanation. He sounds like he means it, but he won’t look you in the eye and what little of his expression you can see between his fingers is giving you mixed signals.”So you realized you were flushed me while facing the deadliest foe in two universes?”

“No, I realized I liked you when you were talking earlier about how I was the only one who could make the universe a better place. Before that I was still unsure. I wanted to give you a chance on the last battlefield, but it wasn’t until just a moment ago that I realized this could actually work.”

“Because I flattered you and you thought I was pathetic.”

“Well… I mean, yeah, I guess that’s basically it, but it sounds kind of stupid when you put it like that.”

“You want to know why that is, Egbert? Because it is stupid! In fact, this has to be the most idiotic statement that’s ever writhed its way past your ridiculous buck teeth.”

Ouch. That… that really kind of hurts, and you’re not 100% sure why. Everything Karkat just said is true and you know it. You even half-expected him to be mad at you. Really mad, even, because you know Karkat’s good at that and besides, you do kind of deserve it. You just…

You didn’t expect it to _matter_ this much.

“Haha… Yeah, I guess it was kind of stupid,” you say, trying to remember what muscles you have to pull to make your face smile. “Well, that’s really everything, I guess. And you don’t have to worry. I’ll show the new trolls how to make friends and not accidentally hurt the humans. And who knows, maybe Rose can even teach them how to be smart, so they don’t all turn out stupid like me! It’ll be OK in the end. I just know it.”

Only you don’t know it, because right now the words sound as cheap and thin as a Hallmark card. But you’re already in the air by the time you force them out, so maybe he doesn’t notice over the sound of the wind. There’s an achy feeling in your chest like something’s bruised or broken and _oh fuck_ _you get it._

You turn away from Karkat as fast as you can, hoping he can’t read it off your face because that smile you were hiding behind doesn’t feel like a smile so much as a grimace. All your muscles are tight and your eyes sting and you know it’s not because of the wind. Are you? You are. You’re crying. You’re actually crying and you don’t know what to do about it. All these feelings just attacked you out of nowhere, like nothing you’ve ever felt before, and that was OK when it made you _need_ to kiss Karkat but now you can’t stop crying and you don’t know what to do. You don’t know where to go because Dave would just laugh at the irony, Rose would psychoanalyze, and Jade would probably offer to shoot him for hurting you, but you do know that the worse thing, the absolute worst thing, would be to stay here and let Karkat see you crying.

“Egbert, wait.”

“It’s OK, Karkat. You’re right, this really is a bad time! We really need to get back to…” Whatever you were doing. What were you doing? Your brain can’t seem to think of anything but the one thing you wish it wasn’t thinking about.

“Egbert!”

A tear’s dangling on the end of your nose. It really, _really_ tickles, and you want to brush it away but you can’t without Karkat seeing.

“DAMN IT, JOHN, WAIT A SECOND!”

A sudden weight slams onto your ankle like a ball and chain, dragging you back down to earth. Karkat’s got a hold of your ankle with both hands. You feel a jolt travel up your body as he hits the ground, followed by a sharp jerk that almost pulls your pants down but instead sends you rushing ten times as fast to the ground. You forget just how much stronger trolls are than humans, sometimes. You can’t even catch yourself properly as you slam down in the dirt. It hurts, and you’re first instinct is to be glad because now you have a legitimate reason to be crying.

You hit knees first, then hands, then face. You feel hands on you, Karkat’s hands, and the weight of him as he forces you over from your belly to your back. You run the sleeves of your hoodie across your face, wiping away tears and dirt and snot. You close your eyes in a desperate attempt to keep more tears from forcing their way out, all the while saying “Wait, no, Karkat, hold on, please, wait, stop!”

Karkat’s on top of you now. His sharp nails dig into your shoulders as he pushes you further down.

“YOU CAN’T JUST RUN AWAY. NO. DAMN IT, NO! DO YOU HEAR ME, JOHN? YOU HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA HOW SICK I AM OF WHAT ARE YOU DOING. JOHN? JOHN, ARE YOU CRYING? NO. FUCK, JOHN, NO. DO NOT FUCKING CRY. STOP CRYING. DAMN IT, JOHN, STOP CRYING RIGHT NOW.”

You close your eyes as tight as you can and clench your teeth together in an effort to stop crying. It doesn’t work very well.

“OK, no. Stop that. That’s horrible. That is the most pathetic face I have ever seen you make, and I watched you every fucking time you fell off that green torture device on your lawn ring.”

You laugh. You can’t help it. You’ve just got all these unexpected emotions bubbling up out of you at all the worst moments. You are such an idiot.

“You are such an idiot,” Karkat says, as if he can read your thoughts.

“I know.”

An idiot with a crush on an alien boy whose heart you probably broke weeks ago. You open your eyes and look at him. It’s amazing how sometime in the few short days you’ve actually known one another, grey skin, black eyes surrounded by yellow, candy-corn horns, and black lips have somehow stopped looking strange to you. Somewhere along the line, the first thought to cross your mind when you looked at him stopped being “alien” and started being this wordless feeling that makes you want to grin a big, goofy grin, even though you know it’ll just make him scowl and list off all the reasons in the universe you shouldn’t be smiling. Oh, man. How did you not realize it before? You can feel every bit of it now, and it’s so huge. How long has this been inside you without you knowing? How did you miss it in the first place?

 “You just blunder into everything you do, don’t you? You just throw yourself at it with everything you’ve got and hope it turns out OK in the end.”

“It usually works pretty well for me.”

“I know. It’ll work here, too. No, wait, I don’t mean this gigantic fucking mess you’ve just created, but the other fucking mess. Our universe. That’s what I meant. As much as it pisses me off, you’ll somehow manage to do everything right and create a civilization better than either of ours just by being you. You’ll just charge in there with smiles and, and fucking rabbits, talking about stupid Earth movies and smiling at everyone like the idiot you are, and somehow everything will turn out alright just because you’re the one doing it.”

“Hehe, it kind of sounds like you’re hitting on me again.”

“Is that not OK?”

It had just been a joke, but the way Karkat’s looking at you is nothing short of serious. Oh shit, you realize, he really means it.

“Yeah, that’s OK.”

“No, wait. Don’t look like that. I’m not saying I have feelings for you.”

“Oh.” _Fuck._

“No, don’t make that face either. Would you just stop with the faces for one fucking second? Damn it, I can’t even think thanks to all your stupid faces. Look, just… Fuck. Do you know why I stopped you?”

“Uh…”

“I didn’t do it because I suddenly realized I had feelings for you, alright? So don’t think that. I did it because it was just one of those moments, like in the movies.”

“What?”

“You know, one of those moments that happens in every movie. That cliché moment where the one troll makes a startling confession or engages in a dramatic action that expresses their quadrant desires, but their feelings aren’t returned. Then they turn and leave dramatically in tears, much like you just did, only to be pulled back at the last moment by their quadrant-interest who suddenly realizes they had feelings for the other troll all along and just didn’t realize it. Come on, Egbert, this happens in every fucking romcom.”

“I don’t really watch romance movies. They’re kind of boring.”

“WHAT? OK, no, I don’t even blame you for that. I saw some of your pathetic human cinema, and for a species that solely pairs male with female, your human female cinema representations are the most vile, boring, flat wastes of space that I have ever had the displeasure of observing. It’s like they’re all robots programmed with the same basic disgusting desires that are incapable of independent thought. If that’s normal for the females of your species, you are so fucking lucky to be friends with the two girls you are, even if they’re both insane. If you would have ended up paired with two of those robots, we’d all be dead. Of course, if you’d never brought Jade into the game to begin with, you never would have created your version of Jack, so I guess in a way—”

“Karkat, could we maybe get back to the point?”

“Right. Fuck, what was the point?”

“Why are you asking me? You just started going on about romance movies.”

“Oh. Shut up. I remember. OK, look… The moment was there, and you were totally in it. You were that troll making the dramatic confession, and then you tried to leave. I knew I had to stop you, but it wasn’t because I felt anything. Get it? I just knew I had to. Because that’s how it works. But I don’t have feelings for you.”

“You mean you don’t have feelings for me anymore.”

It’s petty to bring that up. You know it, but it doesn’t stop you.

“That doesn’t fucking count! That was a completely different quadrant from what you’re talking about.”

“I _know,_ I was just—”

“That was black, alright? That was so fucking black that the horrorterrors would have shied away from it only it wasn’t really because we already established that I was mistaken and pretty much OK with you from the start. I never really hated you, but that was hate, pure and simple. We’re talking red feelings now. That is a completely different quadrant. Polar opposite, in fact. You can’t just flip feelings from one end of the spectrum to the other. Well, you can in certain situations where one partner is black and the other is red, but that is a completely fucking different thing from what we’re talking about right now. This is red, right? We established that it’s red. Did you forget how this works again? Do I need to explain it one more fucking time to get it through to your dense thinkpan?”

“Oh my god, Karkat, no! Not the quadrants again!”

“Then don’t insult me by trying to twist my feelings to fit yours!”

“OK! I’m sorry! I won’t do it again! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Oh god, this was such a huge mistake! I can’t believe I even thought I could do this.”

You burry your face in your hands because it’s so hard to look at Karkat right now, and he’s just right there in your face, leaving nowhere else for your eyes to go.

“Will you please get off of me?” you beg into your palms.

“WHAT?”

You spread your hands apart, freeing your mouth but leaving your eyes covered. You probably look ridiculous. Karkat is probably secretly laughing at you right now, only he’s really probably just infuriated at how useless and pathetic you are. The bad kind of pathetic. Whatever! Lousy stupid goddamned troll romance!

“I said, would you please get off of me so I can leave and we can both forget this ever happened?”

“NO, WE ARE NOT FUCKING IGNORING THIS. YOU ARE GOING TO SIT THERE AND LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY. FOR ONCE IN YOUR MISERABLE FUCKING EXISTANCE, YOU ARE GOING TO LISTEN TO ME AND YOU ARE GOING TO DO EXACTLY WHAT I SAY. HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR, EGBERT? YOU ARE MY CAPTIVE FUCKING AUDIENCE AND I WILL RAIN SHIT DOWN ON YOUR USELESSS, WEAK FORM IF YOU PISS ME OFF BY RUNNING THAT FUCKING MOUTH OF YOURS ONE MORE TIME.”

“Oh my god, Karkat, just get off of me and let me feel pathetic and rejected in peace!”

“WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST SAY?”

He jerks both of your hands away from your mouth and pins them above your head with one hand, just so he can put _his own hand_ over your mouth. It is so awkward. It has the power of a thousand awkward, green suns. And worse, it’s kind of doing weird things to the area deep down below your stomach. Oh god, your body just had to pick the worst possible time to figure out that Karkat Vantas is undeniably… well, s-e-x-y. Oh, jeez, you can’t even say it without spelling it like a five year old! You are so not ready for all these feelings!

You mumble a frantic surrender under Karkat’s calloused palm. Your lips are tingly everywhere they touch Karkat’s skin. It is so awkward! You can’t help but to squirm a little, but that makes it even worse in even worse places!

“SHUT. UP.”

You fall still and hope that maybe he’ll remove himself of his own accord. He has to, right? Eventually.

“Good, now I am going to tell you what we’re going to do. We are going to… Fuck,” he removes his hands and wipes the one that had been against your lips on his pant leg. “Not a fucking word, understand?”

He waits until you nod.

“We are not going to forget this ever fucking happened, alright? Because that’s just… That’d just be too shitty, even for me. I know what it’s like to have somebody… And knowing you, you’d just go off and wallow in your own self-pity if I let you. ‘Oh, woe is me! The single sexiest boy in the whole universe won’t return my feelings!’ Yeah, that’s right, I know you that well. And I am going to tell you right here and now, Egbert, that shit won’t fly.”

You wonder how often Karkat’s been talking to Dave lately. You are definitely sensing some coolkid channeled into this reprimand. You wonder if it’s intentional. And if he’s going to tell Dave about this.

“You have got a very fucking important job to do, one that’s not going to just wait around for you to get over your ridiculous red crush on me. And I gave up on my black feelings for you long ago. I mean, I gave up thinking those were really black because we have clearly established, several fucking times, that I have always been pretty much OK with you.”

He’s rambling. He isn’t even looking at you anymore. You have no idea what he’s getting at, because all it sounds like so far is that he’s repeating everything the two of you have already been over, with particular emphasis of how much of an idiot you are for even brining this up.

“So, I just figured… Fuck, if you’re going to go through all the trouble to turn our lives into a perfect movie moment, even though I’m fully aware that this is a blatant manipulation of my respect for a carefully crafted romcom, then… You win, alright? You wanted a second chance? You’ve got one. Now all you’ve got to do is convince me that this isn’t the worst decision I’ve ever made.”

You must be making another one of those faces because your jaw aches in the best possible way and Karkat’s face has turned that same shade of red that made you want to kiss him the first time.

“With all the shitty decisions I’ve made in my life, it shouldn’t be that fucking hard.”


End file.
